Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Episode lists

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This is the talk page for discussing guidelines, issues, and ideas for WikiProject List of Television Episodes.
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/structure

Wikipedia:WikiProject List of Television Episodes/structure needs to be updated a bit and cleaned up to reflect the formatting currently being used by the templates and such. I've started to edit some stuff, trying to stick with things that I think you'll all agree with. Feel free to revert, edit, reword, anything you don't think sounds right. Any major concerns should be brought to ether this talk page or to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject List of Television Episodes/structure. I think it's important that we still explain the article layout even without using templates. For one, it shows people what the templates are actually doing, in raw form, as well as giving editors a non-template option, if there be a need for it. In addition, I think we should strive to eventually get this, or something like this, into the Manual of Style as an official guideline, in which case we would have to explain all the formatting details.

In addition to the changes I made, there should also be a section about references, which is one requirement for Featured list status. I also think we should come up with some guidelines to help deal with lists that are embedded into their main articles and not big enough to split. Maybe even explore other formatting appearances that would still be acceptable, to give some additional options.

This should at least get the ball rolling. I think it might be a good idea to inform some other wikiprojects about the updates to get their input, since our membership is still pretty small. -- Ned Scott 02:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also got to thinking, in having more than one possible layout, we should have a guideline for very small lists, ones that don't have a summary or image. A good example can't come to mind at the moment, but I'm sure there are many lists were it would be a mess to encourage summaries for each episode entry. Game-shows come to mind, but I don't really think they should even have a list with each "episode", as they don't really have... "episodes". Just a thought. -- Ned Scott 03:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cell shading

I just noticed how nice the cell shading was done for the row that contains title and air date in The Simpsons season 4. It really helps to visually separate the information and makes it easier to read. Maybe we should apply this to our style guidelines and templates? -- Ned Scott 20:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah looks nice. I'm all for it. - TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we might even be able to use the math function of templates to make this process easier. Basically, it would take whatever value LineColor has, then lighten it. Now to see if I can get that to work.. -- Ned Scott 08:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've applied some very light cell shading to Template:Japanese episode list as a test. Even though it's very subtle it seems to make an improvement. Should we try this on Template:Episode list? I know the template is mixed with manual table code, like in List of South Park episodes, so we might want to at least manually enter the shading in the normal wiki code for consistency on those articles. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 05:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and applied it to Episode list as well, and I manually put in the shading for the other episode entries on the South Park list so they'd keep their consistency, being a featured list and all. -- Ned Scott 01:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parameter compatibility

I think we should strive to keep the same names for the parameters of the templates where possible. Also we should probably make some comments on things like "Guest stars, directors, writers etc.". Personally i prefer the way Grey's Anatomy and Simpsons Season 4 do this. It's much more readable then having it in seperate columns. - TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, although for the Japanese episode list that was basically my reason for making its own template, to make parameter names that would be easily understood what they were for. I think there's a way to make more than one parameter name equal the same parameter, which would make it so that there wouldn't be a need for a separate template like Japanese episode list, and even if you moved the parameters to another template they'd still work. But yeah, I agree, this making consistent use of parameter names will allow episode list data to be applied to many different templates without needless editing. -- Ned Scott 06:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response to comment

Hi, one of your project's leaders made a comment on the page List of Stargate SG-1 episodes. I would just like to say that I have responded and made a proposal that I think you will like. Please respond on the SG-1 list's talk page; we should keep the thread in one place. Tobyk777 08:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use images in lists

See Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists for a request for comment about the use of fair use images in lists. This RFC arose out of a dispute about the use of images on list of Lost episodes and has grown beyond that article to have broader significance for lists generally. Please join the discussion if you are interested in this issue. --bainer (talk) 05:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of Justice League episodes

At List of Justice League episodes,we have an editor who wants to split all of the episodes off at once into their own articles. Unfortunately for him, the majority of editors has asked him not to create so many stubs at once, saying that the current page should be expanded before we go to individual episodes. Despite several Wikipedia bans over the last month, this editor refuses to listen, is uncivil toward the editors who do not agree with him, and continuously splits of articles and reverts the current one dispute consensus being against it. He is now seeking support at a number of other TV articles. This has gone on far too long. I have asked as a compromise that he add the information he wants to add to the current article so that it will expand enough to split off. I would appreciate it if editors from here came and provided some guidance one way or the other because I have never seen one editor rage against a number of other editors and revert their edits for so long.--Chris Griswold 06:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like a headache... but agreed. This is one editor forcing his flawed logic on others. LOE is in need of writing up and adopting such guidelines for the whole article -> ep list -> ep article, evolution, looks like now is a good time to come up with a draft, and maybe those rationales will help the JL issue as well. -- Ned Scott 07:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much. I have been working to organize WP:COMICS and would like to help out here as well. --Chris Griswold 08:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using our WikiProject banner for a notice

I've placed a notice using {{WikiProject LOE}} in regards to the current RFC about fair use images in Lists of episodes. Normally I'd be against using a WikiProject banner for posting this type of notice, but I feel the issue is very important to our WikiProject, and will effect many articles that we are involved with. For the sake of informing other editors, this seemed to be a good idea. The message can easily be removed, and is very efficient in informing many effected articles and editors with little effort. I don't think this is something we should make a habit of, in any case, but feel this is a special case. -- Ned Scott 04:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DVD release information at the top of each page

Please tell me if this is not the right place to being this up:

I like the boxes at the top of some episode lists such as List of The Simpsons episodes, since they are a summary that links you to the appropriate season and provide some extra information about DVD releases on the same page. Having DVD release dates and cover art there isn't entirely necessary in my opinion but that's a minor quibble, it doesn't take up much room to have that there.

What I am against is the massive expansion of this on some pages to have a great long explanation of which episodes are on which DVD sets, such as the pages on Family Guy, the word "summary" has actually been changed to "DVD releases" because there's so much DVD info there, plus the information in this cases is not presented very well anyway. Some shows (including Family Guy) have their own pages for discussing DVD information, and in my opinion even if there isn't it should go on the article's main page. Can I confirm that it's not good practice to have a summary box like this? It's an episode list after all, not a list of DVDs. I thought I'd seen a couple of other pages where there was a lot of DVD stuff in the sumary box but I can't put my finger on them now Jimbow25 18:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tough one. I would say that information does belong somewhere. Maybe it should at least be reduced to two sentances at most just like the episode summaries. The List of Family Guy episodes could probably use a wider table.--Will2k 19:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categorisation work

Hi. I've done some refactoring work on your Project's categories and templates today (along with several other WikiProjects). I'm confident you'll find that the new organisation a big improvement. For more information and a rationale please see what I've written at Wikipedia:WikiProject/Best_practices#Categorisation or drop me a line on my talk page.

If you're not yet assessing articles for Wikipedia 1.0 and using Mathbot, you might also find Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index of subjects and it's talk page very useful. --kingboyk 17:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's terrific, thanks!--Will2k 19:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

episodes by title

Currently we've been formatting episodes by air date, but I noticed that List of Justice League episodes does it by title/ story. Basically, instead of splitting the entries by Part one, part two, etc, they did that. Depending on the nature of the show, and maybe some other factors, I can see this as a good idea. What does everyone think? -- Ned Scott 20:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like it with one episode (row) per air date.--Will2k 17:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

more template tweeks

I made the background of the ShortSummary cell white, to help the tables not look so dark. This has also made more contrast between the shading of the Title row. Thoughts? good? bad? -- Ned Scott 20:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ImageCaption

I'm not sure why this hasn't been included in either of the templates, but I've included the ability to set a caption that will appear as tooltip on the images. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. -- Ned Scott 22:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's list guidelines

Just noticed this now, but apparently there's been some discussion about Wikipedia:List guideline (see Wikipedia talk:List guideline) about reforming the basic guidelines for lists and list articles. A proposal has come out of that discussion, Wikipedia:List guidelines reborn and will be discussed on Wikipedia talk:List guidelines reborn. I haven't looked at it in depth myself yet, but I thought I'd pass the word. -- Ned Scott 05:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Batman: The Animated Series

The episode list for this is severely lacking. Could the members here please lavish some care onto it? Ta. --Jamdav86 20:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think it needs? --Chris Griswold 06:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has red links to many the episodes, flip-flops between disambigs and part listings, all jobs that are relevant to the list editor. --Jamdav86 18:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Need an opinion

TrackerTV has created a barnstar proposal relating to Broadcasting. I would really appreciate it if interested people could give an opinion here.--Ed 20:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:This barnstar may be used in assoiation with your WikiprojectEd 21:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of Justice League episodes

People are taking consensus against the conventions in this page. Votes are needed to keep the work up in that page. These people (I think most of them don't even get any work done on the article, just criticize) don't want neither expand the synopsis on the episode list nor create articles per episode and it happens in most cases. --T-man, the wise 06:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, this is more something for WP:TV, as it involves both LOE and WikiProject Television episodes. So far the two daughter projects, LOE and TE, have not directly collaborated on how to grow this information, although it has been suggested that such collaboration would be helpful. Basically, you are looking for a consensus that has not yet been reached by this project. Currently, as a daughter project of WP:TV, we simply follow Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

heh, thanks for the tip. You don't follow the centralized discussion, read it again.--T-man, the wise 07:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In what way does LOE not follow the centralized discussion? -- Ned Scott 08:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I was talking in general LOE is ok. The consensus against a convention is kinda weird.--T-man, the wise 22:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

/structure

Cell shading

Parameter compatibility

Response to comment

Categories

Fair use images in lists

List of Justice League episodes

Using our WikiProject banner for a notice

DVD release information at the top of each page

Categorisation work

episodes by title

more template tweeks

ImageCaption

Wikipedia's list guidelines

Batman: The Animated Series

Need an opinion

List of Justice League episodes